Chapter XXI - Public Works

It is difficult to guess how much truth there is in the ancient
traditions that the water-courses of the empire were improved
through gigantic engineering works undertaken by the ancient
Emperors of China. There is one gorge, well known to travellers,
above Ich’ang, on the River Yang-tsz, on the way to Ch’ung-k’ing,
where the precipitous rocks on each side have the appearance and
hardness of iron, and for a mile or more–perhaps several miles–
stand perpendicularly like walls on both sides of the rapid Yang-
tsz River: the most curious feature about them is that from below
the water-level, right up to the top, or as far as the eye can
reach, the stone looks as though it had been chipped away with
powerful cheese-scoops: it seems almost impossible that any
operation of nature can have fashioned rocks in this way; on the
other hand, what tools of sufficient hardness, driven by what
great force, could hollow out a passage of such length, at such a
depth, and such a height? It is certain that after Ts’in conquered
the hitherto almost unknown kingdoms of Pa and Shuh (Eastern and
Western Sz Ch’wan) a Chinese engineer named Li Ping worked wonders
in the canalization of the so-called CH’ENg-tu plain, or the rich
level region lying around the capital city of Sz Ch’wan province,
which was so long as Shuh endured also the metropolis of Shuh. The
consular officers of his Britannic Majesty have made a special
study of these sluices, which are still in full working order, and
they seem almost unchanged in principle from the period (280 B.C.)
when Li Ping lived. The Chinese still regard this branch of the
Great River as the source; or at least they did so until the
Jesuit surveys of two centuries ago proved otherwise; it was quite
natural that they should do so in ancient times, for the true
upper course, and also Yiin Nan and Tibet through which that
course runs, were totally unknown to them, and unheard of by name;
even now the so-called Lolo country of Sz Ch’wan and Yiin Nan is
mostly unexplored, and the mountain Lolos are quite independent of
China. The fact that they have whitish skins and a written script
of their own (manifestly inspired by the form of Chinese
characters) makes them a specially interesting people. Li Ping’s
engineering feats also included the region around Ya-thou and Kia-
ting, as marked on the modern maps.

The founder of the Hia dynasty (2205 B.C.) is supposed to have
liberated the stagnant waters of the Yellow River and sent them to
the sea; as this is precisely what all succeeding dynasties have
tried to do, and have been obliged to try, and what in our own
times the late Li Hung-chang was ordered to do just before his
death, there seems no good reason for suspecting the accuracy of
the tradition; the more especially as we see that the founder of
the Chou dynasty sent his chief political adviser and his two most
distinguished relatives to settle along this troublesome river’s
lower course, as rulers of Ts’i, Yen, and Lu; the other
considerable vassals were all ranged along the middle course.

The original Chinese founder of the barbarian colony of Wu
belonged, as already explained, to the same clan or family as the
founder of the Chou dynasty, and in one respect even took
ancestral or spiritual precedence of him, because the emigrant had
voluntarily retired into obscurity with his brother in order to
make way for a third and more brilliant younger brother, whose
grandson it was that afterwards, in 1122 B.C., conquered China,
and turned the Chou principality, hitherto vassal to the Shang
dynasty, into the Chou dynasty, to which the surviving Shang
princes then became vassals in the Sung state and elsewhere. Even
though the founder of Wu may have adopted barbarian ways, such as
tattooing, hair-cutting, and the like, he must have possessed
considerable administrative power, for he made a canal (running
past his capital) for a distance of thirty English miles along the
new “British” railway from Wu-sih to Ch’ang-shuh, as marked on
present maps; his idea was to facilitate boat-travelling, and to
assist cultivators with water supplies for irrigation.

In the year 485 B.C. the King of Wu, who was then in the hey-day
of his success, and by way of becoming Protector of China, erected
a wall and fortifications round the well-known modern city of
Yangchow (where Marco Polo 1700 years later acted as governor); he
next proceeded for the first time in history to establish water
communication between the Yang-tsz River and the River Hwai; this
canal was then (483-481) continued farther north, so as to give
communication with the southern and central parts of modern Shan
Tung province.

His object was to facilitate the conveyance of stores for his
armies, then engaged in bringing pressure upon Ts’i (North Shan
Tung) and Lu (South Shan Tung). He succeeded in getting his boats
to the River Tsi, running past Tsi-nan Fu, and to the River I,
running past I-thou Fu, thus dominating the whole Shan Tung
region; for these two were then the only navigable rivers in Shan
Tung besides the Sz. The River Tsi is now taken possession of by
the Yellow River, which, as we have shown, then ran a parallel
course much to the westward of it; and the River I then ran south
into the River Sz, which, as already explained, has in its lower
course, in comparatively modern times, been taken possession of
permanently by the Grand Canal; but the upper course of the Sz,
now, as then, ran past Confucius’ town, the Lu metropolis, of
K’ueh-fu. In 483 B.C. the same king cast his faithful adviser (of
Ts’u origin) into the canal by which the waters of lake T’ai Hu
now run to modern Soochow, and thence to Hangchow. Ever since that
date the unfortunate man in question has been a popular “god of
the waters” in those parts. It follows, therefore, that the Wu
founder’s modest canal must have been from time to time extended,
at least in an easterly direction. It was only after the conquest
of China by Ts’in, 250 years later, that the First August Emperor
extended this system of canals northwards and westwards, from
Ch’ang-thou Fu to Tan-yang and Chinkiang, as marked on the modern
maps. Thus the barbarian kings of Wu have found the true alignment
of our “British”, railway for us; and, so far as the northern
canal is concerned, have really achieved the task for which credit
is usually given to Kublai Khan, the Mongol patron of Marco Polo.
Kublai merely improved the old work. The ancient Wu capital was 10
English miles south-east of Wu-sih, and 17 miles north of Soochow,
to which place the capital was transferred in the year 513 B.C.,
as it was more suitable than the old capital for the arsenals and
ship-building yards then, for the first time, being built on an
extensive scale by the King of Wu.

The first bridge over the Yellow River was constructed by the
kingdom of Ts’in in 257 B.C., on what is still the high-road
between T’ung-thou Fu and P’u-chou Fu. Previous to that date
armies had to cross the Yellow River at the fords; and, as an
instance of this, it may be stated that the founder of the Chou
dynasty in 1122 B.C. summoned his vassals to meet him at the Ford
of Meng, a place still so marked on the maps, and lying on the
high-road between the two modern cities of Ho-nan Fu and Hwai-
k’ing Fu; thus there was no excuse for the feudal princes failing
to arrive at the rendezvous. It was not far from the same place,
but on the north bank of the river, that Tsin in 632 B.C. held the
great durbar as Second Protector, on the notorious occasion when
the puppet Emperor was “sent for” by the Tsin dictator. To conceal
this outrage on “the rites,” Confucius says: “The Son of Heaven
went in camp north of the river.” To go on hunt, or in camp, is
still a vague historical expression for “go on fief inspection,"
and it was so used in 1858, when the Manchu Emperor Hien-feng took
refuge from the allied troops at Jehol in Tartary.

The first thing Ts’in did when it united the empire in 221 B.C.
was to occupy all the fords and narrow passes, and to put them in
working order for the passage of armies. As even now the lower
Yellow River is only navigable for large craft for 20 miles from
its mouth (now in Shan Tung), it is easy to imagine how many fords
there must have been in its shallow waters, and also how it came
to pass that boats were so little used to convey large bodies of
troops with their stores.

The great wall of China of 217 B.C. was by no means the first of
its kind. A century before that date Ts’in built a long wall to
keep off the Tartars; and, half a century before that again, Ngwei
(one of the three powerful families of Tsin, all made independent
princes in 403) had built a wall to keep off its western neighbour
Ts’in; both these walls seem to have been in the north part of the
modern Shen Si region, and they were possibly portions of the
later continuous great wall of the August Emperor, which occupied
the forced energies of 700,000 men. There is a statement that the
same Emperor set 700,000 eunuchs to work on the palaces and the
tomb he was constructing for himself at his new metropolis (moved
since 350 B.C. to the city of Hien-yang, north of the river Wei,
opposite the present Si-ngan Fu). This probably means, not that
eunuchs were common in those times as palace employes, but
that castration still was the usual punishment inflicted
throughout China for grave offences not calling for the penalty of
death, or for the more serious forms of maiming, such as foot-
chopping or knee-slicing; and that all the prisoners of that
degree were told off to do productive work: although humiliatingly
deformed, they were still available for the common purposes of
native life, and their defenceless and forlorn plight would
probably make it an easier matter to handle them in gangs than to
handle sound males; and if they died off under the rough treatment
of task-masters, they would have no families to mourn or avenge
them in accordance with family duty; for a eunuch has no name and
no family. The palaces in question were joined by a magnificent
bridge on the high-road between Hien-yang and Si-ngan. This very
year a German firm has contracted to build an iron bridge over the
Yellow River at Lan-thou Fu, where crossed by Major Bruce.